In 2018, we made a video all about how Discord, a free chat service, makes money. But already, in under a year, that video is out of date! In this blog, we’re going to cover how Discord makes money in 2019.

To start, in 2016 Discord promised that they would never run ads on their website or app. Most websites and free services, including social media sites, use advertising as a primary form of revenue. This would be the easy way out, but it is a big relief that Discord does not want to run ads and clutter up the user experience.They have also stated that they are not in the business of selling user data. Despite their terms of service being a bit unclear about user data, and people quoting “if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product”, there is no actual evidence that Discord is selling user data to third parties, and Discord themselves have made it clear they do not want to do that. Because data privacy is such a big deal, we don’t blame you...

By the most recent report, Discord had around 90 million users at the end of 2017. They have become a major player in the group communications field, especially within gaming and other special interests. But the company was not always so successful. For all of those who have wanted to know where Discord came from and how they got so big, you can find out here!

Before Discord

Discord wasn't the first stab at a successful business that current CEO Jason Citron had. His first notable business was Aurora Feint, the company behind OpenFeint. OpenFeint was a social platform for mobile gaming, and was named after a game developed by the company. The platform was first released in 2009, and at one point in 2010, there were 900 applications in the App Store that used it. In 2011, Japanese company GREE, Inc. purchased the company, but soon OpenFeint was plagued by lawsuits. While the lawsuits were dismissed eventually, GREE discontinued the service and decided to use their own similar...